Drake's IDGAF: Meet the 82-year-old jazz singer sampled in new hit

1 year ago 25
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Drake performing on stage. The rapper has his hair styles in braids and has a short dark beard. He wears a black T-shirt and expensive looking jewellery including a diamond earring, necklace and wrist watch. He has tattooed arms and holds a microphone to his face in his right hand. He is performing on stage with dry ice lit purple and leans forward as he performs. Behind him you can just see rapper 21 Savage wearing a high-collared green jumperImage source, Getty Images

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Drake felt Norma's vocals were Too Good not to sample on his new track

By Riyah Collins

BBC Newsbeat

Drake's had some pretty iconic collabs in his career, from Rihanna and 21 Savage to Nicki Minaj and now... Norma Winstone, an 82-year-old jazz singer.

You probably haven't heard of the London artist or her most popular song, I Loves You Porgy, which has 600,000 streams on Spotify.

But it was her 1977 futuristic track The Tunnel which caught the Canadian rapper's ears for his new hit IDGAF.

For Norma though, it was more one question than One Dance: who is Drake?

After receiving a hotline bling from his team six weeks ago, she says it was down to her son, a drummer in the band Hot Chip, to explain exactly who Drake is.

"He just said, 'Mum - he's mega'. And I said, 'oh right' - and started to look into it," Norma says.

"It's not my sort of area of listening.

"I listen to all kinds of music, but not really rap because I often can't understand what they're saying."

Image source, Getty Images

Image caption,

Until six weeks ago, Norma Winstone thought Drake's nickname "Champagne Papi" was actually fine wine

IDGAF, featuring Yeat, was released last month and has already racked up more than 127 million streams.

Norma's vocals - taken from The Tunnel - open the song, accompanied by synth, piano and a trumpet, and plays out for a minute.

She told BBC Radio 4's Today programme she'd written the words for the nine-minute song and "just improvised the melody over it."

"There's a lot of improvisation," she says.

Although she's not a rap fan, Norma, who now lives in Kent, decided she had to give IDGAF "a chance" and was pleasantly surprised.

And she says, while it's very different, she did notice some similarities with The Tunnel.

"It's strange, because he [Drake] is protesting and he doesn't give a monkey's - for want of a better word.

"And I thought, well actually that's how we felt when we recorded our music, because it was hardly what people were waiting for at the time, and I don't think they were really ready for it."

The singer also admits she "can actually understand" some of the words in Drake's song.

"Some I'd probably rather not understand," she says.

BBC Newsbeat has contacted Drake's representatives for comment.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.

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